this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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UK Politics

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The Conservative MP Miriam Cates, a high-profile figure on the party’s right wing, is being investigated by the parliamentary standards watchdog.

Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire since 2019, is being investigated for “actions causing significant damage to the reputation of the house as a whole, or of its members generally”, a brief notice on the website of the commissioner for standards said.

The inquiry falls under paragraph 17 of the updated 2019 code of conduct for MPs, which says: “Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its members generally.”

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The study ends in 1969. This is based on people aged 50 and above. This is not relevant to the kids of today. The cost of living crisis is now. Kids are not having kids because they are really struggling to live.

There are some huge caveats missed in that study. It is akin to stating people who eat ice cream are more likely to get sun burned. There is not enough correlation between the stats of education level and child birth. They only suggest that is the case. In this era education was free. If a woman was not rearing kids, then education was at your disposal. Now it is not. Having kids stops education dead in the water for a lot of kids, because now it is a debt trap.

Again critical thinking goes a long way.

[–] 13esq 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Here's a UK source from 2023. A person of such critical thinking would probably be able to start connecting the dots at this point.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/25/graduation.highereducation

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Mate give it up.

The article is 20 years old. It misses a massive point. Kids are struggling enough today without families. Birth control is better understood now than it ever has been in the past. Do you even read the news out side of the Tory media?

Being poor means less chance at education, being poor means you cannot afford a family, and will actively look to stop having kids. It is a consequence of not having the finances to do other stuff, like pay for an education, that makes the stats skewed. Having an education gives better access to better financial rewards from employment, which enabled you to give a child a better chance at stability. The prevalence of being childless is not a consequence of being under educated; it is purely down to the fact that the Tories have turned the screw to much on the least fortunate in the UK.

Again Ice cream does not give you sunburn. It is just that more people eat it on hot days.

I think, where we both agree is that we need better education across the country to give kids a better chance. The Tories have demolished funding for schools in the north of England. It needs rectifying. This is only one of the many other things the Tories have demolished in the last 14 years.

[–] 13esq 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I understand your point and I don't contest it. But to claim that there is no correlation between education and the number of kids you have and to claim that it isn't least partly causative is denial.

If you came out of uni with thousands of pounds worth of debt, 7 years behind others who have already joined the work force, no high skilled job to move in to, not married because you were focusing on your studies and unable to afford a house, having kids would probably be quite far down your priorities list.

You might be the sort of pendant that says "it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop!"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Actually, It is the sudden strop that kills you, or at the very least hitting something that slows you on the way down. Having no kids is a symptom not a cause, and education would help alleviate that. Demonising those who are less well is a blight in this country that needs to stop.

[–] 13esq 0 points 10 months ago

Sure, and it's the amps that kill you not the voltage! (Unless you ignore the fact that without voltage, there can be no amps). And guns don't kill people, bullets do!

Ok, well I think the evidence is overwhelming that higher educated people have less kids, I don't think that's the only reason people have less kids but it's obviously a factor. I think we're at the point where we have to agree to disagree, we're not going to change each others minds here.

Good day, and good luck!